10 years ago The Times
Monday, September 8, 2008
Shipyards agreement ‘improves prospects for privatisation’
The agreement between the government and the General Workers’ Union (GWU) on the shipyards’ privatisation will help secure more interest from foreign investors, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.
He hailed the deal as a breakthrough but cautioned that the privatisation “problem” has still not been solved. It just means that an important obstacle in the process has been overcome, he said. Still, he said that foreign investors, who may have been put off by the ongoing government union dispute – which revolved around the shipyard workers’ early retirement schemes – could now express their interest without having to worry about the tensions, Dr Gonzi said during a party activity at the Rabat Nationalist Party club.
Primarily, the agreement reached on Friday increases the fund made available for the retirement schemes from €49 to €58 million and puts in place more safeguards for the workers who do not opt to join a scheme. Among these, the government has committed itself to trying to negotiate a work guarantee with the ’yard’s prospective buyer for a so far undetermined number of years.
25 years ago - The Times
Wednesday, September 8, 1993
Maltese Cross imports from Thailand make goldsmiths cross
The Maltese Cross, or rather the importation of gold and silver articles incorporating it as a feature, is making gold and silversmiths cross.
Importation of the eight pointed cross was prohibited giving some protection to smiths, but recently a large consignment of silver crosses was imported from Thailand.
This prompted gold and silversmiths to unite and form an association.
Mr Anthony Busuttil, chairman of the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Association, said liberalisation of imports was viewed by the association as only one of the steps that would gradually lead to EC membership.
He felt the first step to bring Malta in line with EC countries should not be liberalisation, but the generation of the same industrial climate as that found in other countries.
For example, Mr Busuttil said that goldsmiths and silversmiths were bound by law to take their finished articles for stamping at the Consul for Gold and Silversmiths.
They are charged a fee of one per cent and have to wait up to three weeks to get them back.
Half a century ago - Sunday Times of Malta
Sunday, September 8, 1968
September 8 celebrations
Today ‒ September 8 – Malta commemorates the raising of the Great Siege of 1565 and that of 1943. The dead of the two sieges were remembered at a Mass “de requiem” celebrated by Mgr Giuseppe Mifsud, Locum Tenens and Chancellor at the Archbishop’s Curia at St John’s Co-Cathedral yesterday morning.
The Cathedral Chapter and the Maltese and German Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta attended Mass.
Representatives of associations, religious organisations and other constituted bodies later laid wreaths at the foot of the National Monument.
Wreaths were also laid on behalf of HE the Governor-General, the government and people of Malta, the Cathedral Chapter and the 8th September Festivities Committee.
Motor yacht hits against rock
The motor yacht Roberta yesterday afternoon hit against a rock in Comino’s Blue Lagoon.
Ron Bartolo, 21, aqualung instructor, went down to inspect the Roberta below the waterline. Details of the damage were not made available.